In Our Hearts
by JoplinHadleigh
Summary: They had everything planned: their vacations, what Universities they would go to, how many children they would have. Life, however, does not always appreciate our planning. Sometimes plans will be destroyed, and our entire forever will be left up to fate.
1. Chapter 1

*thump-thump* *thump-thump* *thump-thump* *thump-thump*

I listened to the steady sound of Jacob's heartbeat, my ear placed to his feverishly warm chest. It was impossible to sleep with blankets anymore unless Jacob was out of town or up late doing work or meetings with the pack. He joked occasionally that he was the one who needed the blankets now, when I lay cuddled in his arms, my cold skin sometimes gave him the chills. I was born a half breed, but somehow got the worst traits from both of my parents: cold, pale skin and the need for blood from dad; clumsiness and human awkwardness from mom.

"We _should_ just elope." Jacob finally said to me. He pulled me a little bit closer to him, and rested my hand on my stomach. "It just feels right Nessie, who knows how much time we'll really have."

I hated talking about time. Time. Time. Time. I thought we were supposed to live forever? Why were we so recently upset with timeframes and months and years? "Maybe we shouldn't wait."

He sat up a little to look at me better, "I thought we agreed we would wait until we were married." His hand moved from my stomach to my hair, stroking it lovingly out of my face.

I mirrored him and sat up to sit cross legged on the bed, facing him. "You promised my parents that as part of the agreement that you could tell me about the imprint earlier than expected." I reached up and grabbed his hand, "We're not even religious Jake. What's the point of waiting?"

He chuckled a bit. "You do make quite the compelling argument." He smiled, and I saw his eyes searching my face, "But it just seems right, everything is happening so fast, so unexpectedly," the smile left his face, "even if we do elope, I still think we should wait."

I groaned and slumped back onto his chest, curling myself up in a ball. "You're hopeless." I said jokingly.

He laughed "And your horny."

I blushed, "I'm also a teenager, it's to be expected. Boys aren't the only horny teens ya'know. Girls are just better at hiding it." It was true, maybe I was just in a rush to lose my virginity to my werewolf boyfriend of three years. But there were more pressing matters to think of. "But Grandpa Carlisle also said the longer we wait; the more issues we'd have." I unconsciously gripped his hand harder, and tried not to let the creeping anxiety affect me anymore.

Jacob was quiet, "I know the risks Ness."

It was here, the anxiety. It was a constant in my life, this never ending fear of everything that could possibly go wrong. "I'm just really scared." My voice cracked, and that was Jacob's cue to wrap both of his arms around and bury his face in my hair. "We were supposed to have forever. Forever to plan our forever." The sobs were building up in my chest: my lungs were tight, my body felt shaky.

I heard Jacob breathe in deeply, "I know baby, I know. But we're still going to have our forever, okay? Just not the forever that we thought we would."

"I could die, Jacob. You heard Grandpa Carlisle when he was going over the risks. There's a very real chance that I could die."

He growled. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"And what are you going to do to stop it?" I was close to yelling. Hot tears were making their way down my cheeks, and I was choking on the sobs while trying to breath.

"Stop, baby please. You're going to tire yourself out." He held me close and rubbed my back in small circles until I could breathe again. "We'll talk to Grandpa Carlisle and Alice in the morning, and then we'll talk to your parents. Okay?"

My body ached from the sobbing, from any added stress, my body ached because it ached. My body was shutting down, and in short I was dying. After fifteen human years on this earth my body was starting to kill itself. Any vampire venom that was in me was trying to destroy any human cells that were still functioning, and any human systems I had left were attacking the vampire in me. My own body was seeing itself as a threat. This meant I was terminally ill, until Grandpa Carlisle decided that there was a chance that I could survive being turned into a vampire. We were all torn between the decision. On one hand I would certainly die, on the other I would go through the agony of becoming a full vampire along with my family, or also risk dying in the process. The only problem was everything that Jacob and I had had planned. My graduate from high school, going to university together, all the vacations we were going to go on, the dream wedding we had been planning, and a family.

A family. I had been having the dream for months now: Jacob and I visiting the pack on a summer day, we were all at the beach, and Jacob carried around his daughter proudly. A tiny baby, with his russet skin and dark hair. We had named her Sarah, in honor of his mother. Billy was there in the dream too, he held his granddaughter and wept, full of pride and love.

"Please don't think about that dream anymore Nessie." Jacob was begging, his voice strained. With how weak I've been lately, my power of sharing memories and thoughts was out of control. I used to have to actively share with others, mostly with a touch or a hand to their face. Now the connection was haywire, and if I was even touching someone and feeling a strong emotion or memory the other person would share it as well.

"It'll happen baby, I know it will. We'll have the life we always wanted, the life we always dreamed about." He whispered, "The perfect house, the perfect children, we'll travel the world: Paris, Mexico, Morocco, all the places you've ever read about and wanted to go, we'll go." His voice was lulling me to sleep, and I let myself give in to the urge for rest, with my soulmate's voice a deep whisper in my ear.

Please leave me any reviews or comments, or let me know if you'd like to me continue this, I promise it'll get better!

Thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Obviously I don't own twilight, or any of the characters, plots, or anything associated with it.

I'm going to write this in chapters divided up by past and present tense, to better tell the story. Let me know if you like this or not, and I hope to be answering some of your questions regarding the plot in later chapters.

*Past*

I hadn't always been sick growing up, in fact I couldn't really remember ever being a sick child. I had the occasional scrapes and bruises, the scratches and marks of childhood. I was never much of a tomboy nor did I ever really enjoy getting dirty. One thing I did love was the beach. Everything about the beach.

The sounds of waves hitting the beach, the feeling of hot sand under my feet, walking alongside Jacob until we found a spot to sit and relax.

It was at the beach that everything happened. It was here that I learned about the pack and who they really were. It was here that Jacob finally told me about the imprint. And it was here that I would start getting sick.

It was a strange thing that happened, normally whenever I had a cut or a scrape it healed quickly and never bothered me again.

Jacob and I were walking along the water; it was close to sunset but still warm enough that neither of us really wanted to go home. Our hands intertwined, we were talking about the wedding plans, as we had been for the past few weeks. Jake had just recently proposed to me only two months prior, it wasn't really much of a surprise, because he had insisted on asking for my permission before he asked for the blessing of my parents.

It was chivalrous albeit unorthodox, but it made me love him even more than I ever thought possible.

I stole a glance at him as he was mid-sentence, talking about something to do with what we should serve at the wedding. Typical Jacob Black, no matter the circumstance or occasion he was thinking about food.

He stopped talking and looked at me, a crooked smile on his face "what?"

I grinned at him like an idiot. "You're perfect, have I ever told you that?"

He stopped walking and faced me, grabbing my other hand in his, "Well you know I try, it truly is hard being this wonderful all the time, but I'm really glad I'm finally getting the recognition I deserve." He laughed at himself and then dodged my hand breaking free from his to try and slap him.

"That's not what I meant you idiot." But I wrapped my arms around him anyways, laughing into his chest. This was the moment I wanted to live in forever: Jacob and I here on this beach, arms around one another, laughing, enjoying whatever plans we thought that we had together.

"I love you." He whispered, and although it wasn't the first time we had exchanged those three little words, it still caught my breath in my chest.

"I love you more" I mumbled into his chest, while simultaneously getting a mouthful of his t-shirt.

"Oh see now, Nessie. This is why I don't wear shirts, you drooled on me as a baby and your drooling on me now." He pulled away and grabbed at his shirt, fanning it to make a show of trying to dry it off.

"Jaaaaaake" I whined, "just let me hug you." I pouted. Jake always had to make a joke just as I was getting comfortable.

He smirked "If you can catch me." He got really close to my face, and paused to press a small kiss to my nose before taking off running through the water.

I frowned, "That's not fair Jake," I started jogging after him "You've got longer legs than me." I was stomping through the water completely lacking any kind of grace in my running.

He stopped, only to taunt me "I'll just wait here until you actually start running."

I groaned, he was only about fifteen feet away, and I willed myself to prove it to him that I could actually chase him. I knew I couldn't, but the determination should really count for something. If only the water wasn't so… watery? I picked my feet up more and ran through the sloshing waves, which seemed to be getting worse and worse. I couldn't have been the only one to notice that.

And maybe it was just bad luck, or fate planned it or some other spiritual nonsense that I really didn't believe in. But I fell. Some freakish rogue wave knocked me down and under. I wasn't prepared so of course I fell down with my mouth wide open, sucking in a mouth full of salty sea water and who knows what else. I landed on something sharp: a shell, a piece of broken glass, anything. I felt it tear my leg open, and started to scream, breathing in more water until my limbs started to flail.

Then Jacob was there, picking me up like a ragdoll and carrying me to the sand. He wasn't panicking, there wasn't any fear in his eyes as he started pounding on my chest, forcing me to cough up the majority of the water in my lungs.

My eyes burned, my chest was on fire, and my leg. Oh my gods, my leg. I started screaming as soon as I could breathe again.

"Oh Ness." His shirt was off in seconds, and he was wrapping it around my leg, tight as he could right above the gash in my leg.

I moved to sit up, only to have him push me back down. "Don't look. You'll be okay." It became a chant of his as he picked me up again and got me into his car, and sped to my house. I don't know if he kept saying it to prove to himself that it would be okay, or to me? Maybe he just thought he had to fill the void created by my screams and whimpers.

My family already knew. Dad was outside as soon as we pulled up, and he and Grandpa Carlisle were the ones to pull me out of the car and into Grandpa's office.

"I wanna see Jake." I whispered to my mother as Grandpa was injecting something into my leg. My body was so cold, colder than I remember it. Or maybe it was just my mother's cool hand against my forehead. Then my leg went numb, and I was so tired.

"You will baby. It's just best if he stays outside for now." My mother cooed into my ear. She was holding my hands in one of hers, as the other stroked wet hair out of my face.

"S'er not mad adem are ya?" I stumbled through my words.

"Edward, she's losing too much blood." My mother snapped at my father across the room.

"I know Bella, Alice and Jacob are out, they'll be back as soon as possible." My father was at my side now, pressing his cool lips to my cheek. "Be strong for me darling, please."

I remember nodding, or maybe I was shaking. I felt like I was being moved, quickly, violently, and then I was asleep.


End file.
